Toulouse shooting: Same gun and motorbike used in Jewish and soldier attacks

Gun used in school massacre that killed four was the same used in the murders
of three soldiers last week, a police source has said.

10:03AM GMT 19 Mar 2012

• Sarkozy: "We should not back down in the face of terror"• Prosecutor: Gunman "shot at everything"• Police open anti-terrorism probe into three incidents• France boosts security at religious institutions• Dead include teacher, his two sons, and Israeli citizen• City "on lockdown" as police hunt killer • France election campaign effectively suspended

The powerful motorbike that the gunman used to make his escape in all three incidents was also the same, a stolen Yamaha 500CC T-MAX, police said.

At least four people, including three children, died on Monday when a gunman opened fire at a Jewish school in Toulouse. The killings have prompted global condemnation, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling them a "national tragedy" and vowing to hunt down the killer.

Anti-terrorism investigators have opened a probe into school shooting as well as the previous two incidents, which all took place in the area around Toulouse over the last week.

The revelation that the same gun was used in the incidents will fan fears that a lone gunman with a vendetta is on the loose in France.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon has already ordered security to be boosted at all schools and religious institutions in the country as President Nicolas Sarkozy labelled the killings on Monday a "national tragedy".

"We are struck by the similarities between the modus operandi of today's drama and those last week even if we have to wait to have more elements from the police to confirm this hypothesis," Mr Sarkozy said from Toulouse.

He said that one of the soldiers killed in the earlier incidents had been of Caribbean origin and the other two Muslims. Monday's incident appears to have been the first time the attacks took on an anti-Semitic nature.

Visiting the scene of the killings in the southern city of Toulouse on Monday, Mr Sarkozy announced a minute of silence in all French schools on Tuesday and said the state would throw its entire weight behind the investigation.

A 30-year-old religious education teacher and his sons aged three and six were mown down as they arrived for class at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse on Monday. Another child aged eight was also killed, and a 17-year-old was seriously injured.

The victims have been named as Israeli citizen Rabbi Yonatan Sandler, his two sons Aryeh and Gavriel, and eight-year-old Miriam Monsonego - daughter of the school's headteacher, Yaacov Monsonego.

"We should not back down in the face of terror," Mr Sarkozy said, his voice cracking as he paid tribute to the parents and school authorities. "Barbarism, savagery, hate must not win. The Republic is much stronger than that.

"You cannot murder children like this on the territory of the Republic without being held to account," he said. "Today is a day of national tragedy."

"I want to say to all the leaders of the Jewish community, how close we feel to them. All of France is by their side," he said.

Policemen escort young people away from the scene of the shooting outside the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse (AFP/Getty Images)

The French presidential campaign has effectively been suspended with Mr Sarkozy's main rival, socialist Francois Hollande, also travelling to Toulouse.

Toulose prosecutor Michel Valet described a chilling scene at the school this morning. "He shot at everything he could see, children and adults, and some children were chased into the school," he said.

One parent described the incident as "a vision of horror".

The city is now believed to be on lockdown as police hunt the gunman, who fled on a black scooter.

The shooting occurred as students were arriving for morning classes at the Ozar Hatorah school, which has around 200 pupils. The gunman opened fire at the spot were parents were dropping their children off.

Some two hours after the attack, the children were still in the school, where they stayed until they were escorted out by police.

Flowers are laid at the site of the shooting in Montauban, where three French soldiers were gunned down by a man on a motorbike (AFP/Getty Images)

One officer held a distraught girl, her face in her hands. A mother and son wearing a yarmulke walked away from the site, their faces visibly pained. A video camera was visible at the school's entrance.

Patrick Rouimi, the father of a child at the school, told AFP that a man opened fire on a group of people standing at a spot where children were picked up for the school.

"I saw two people dead in front of the school, an adult and a child ... Inside, it was a vision of horror, the bodies of two small children," a distraught father whose child attends the school told RTL radio.

"I did not find my son, apparently he fled when he saw what happened.

"How can they attack something as sacred as a school, attack children only sixty centimetres tall?"

The shooting occurred at about 8.10am, just ahead of the start of classes in most French schools. The gunman initially used a 9-mm weapon but it jammed, so he switched to a .45-calibre weapon as he went into the Toulouse school, police said.

The shooter, wearing a helmet, fled the scene on a black scooter, witnesses told BFM. A correspondent for the news channel said people in the area were in "immense shock".

March 15, 2012: Policemen work at the site where three French soldiers were killed in a drive-by shooting near a military base in the southwestern city of Montauban (AFP/Getty Images)

Freelance journalist Christopher Bockman told the BBC that Toulouse was in lockdown as police hunted the gunman.

He told France 24: "This is a medieval city with narrow winding roads, where it is easy for a scooter to outrun a police car."

The Israeli Prime Minister has condemned the "despicable murder of Jews" after the attack. A statement from the country's foreign ministry added: "We trust the French authorities to shed full light on this tragedy and bring the perpetrators of these murders to justice."

France's Grand Rabbi Gilles Bernheim has also expressed shock at the attack. "I am horrifed by what happened this morning in Toulouse in front of the Jewish school," he told AFP.

The head of the Jewish students union of France (UEJF), Jonathan Hayoun, said in a statement that "anti-Semitic and racist speech has created a climate of insecurity for Jews in France".

France has Europe's largest Jewish community, estimated at up to 700,000 people.

Police in the area launched a major manhunt last week after thekilling of three paratroopersand the wounding of another in two separate, but connected incidents. The perpetrator of both attacks fled on a motorbike.

Witnesses described how the killer had time to turn over one of the wounded men who was trying to crawl away and fire three more shots into him before getting back on his scooter and making his escape.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said there was as yet no evidence to suggest the soldiers had been killed because of their service in Afghanistan.

Between 50 and 60 police officers, including anti-terrorist specialists, have been drafted in to the investigation.

Senior military officials have ordered troops based in the region not to wear their uniforms outside barracks.

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